


a walking study in demonology

by littledust



Category: Jennifer's Body (2009)
Genre: Biting, F/F, Hair-pulling, School Reunion, Suits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: The murders start up in Devil's Kettle again, just in time for Anita's ten year high school reunion. Not that she's been invited. Escaped inmates with demonic powers aren't people who get invited to their high school reunions.
Relationships: Jennifer Check/Anita "Needy" Lesnicki
Comments: 10
Kudos: 106
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	a walking study in demonology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Plenty_of_Paper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenty_of_Paper/gifts).



> A very merry Yuletide to you, Plenty of Paper! Thank you for this DELIGHTFUL prompt. I hope you enjoy! The title is from another excellent Hole song, "Celebrity Skin."

The murders start up in Devil's Kettle again, just in time for Anita's ten year high school reunion. Not that she's been invited. Escaped inmates with demonic powers aren't people who get invited to their high school reunions. Probably for the best that the reunion committee doesn't know she's still around. Anita's spent years relying on the law's desire to forget its fuckups and a few hypnosis tricks she picked up from a witch in Saint Paul. She has a fake ID and social security number for Anita Marks.

Jennifer Check, Anita Marks. Just her little memorial.

It's probably dumb, still living in Minnesota under her real first name, but Duluth might as well be LA compared to Devil's Kettle. Here, she's just another blonde chick in the northern Europe of the United States. She's been home to see her mother, for fuck's sake. Disemboweled corpses in the woods of her hometown might as well be a written invitation for her, specifically.

Anita calls her manager at the restaurant. "I gotta bounce on my shifts this weekend. I wasn't gonna go to my high school reunion, but I found out that my one that got away will be there, so..."

"You're fucking me, Marks." Anita can picture Bridget now: at the restaurant like she always fucking is, smoking just far enough outside that the smell won't get into everything. "Fucking me without even buying me dinner first."

Anita grins. If Bridget is swearing without screaming, it's all good. "I'm not even serving you dinner, not this weekend. I promise I'll drive away the guy who grabbed Julie's ass when I get back, k?"

Waitressing pays well, and demonic powers go a long way to surviving the dinner rush. Plus, it's a surprisingly easy way to find terrible men to sacrifice to Satan. Perks of the job, you know?

*

Anita's mom is freaked about the concept of the reunion, even though _she_ didn't even recognize Anita when she showed up at her door. Needy Lesnicki was a bug-eyed mouse with nice tits she never got to show off, a chimera freak of a girl. Anita is a distinguished bisexual who looks bomb ass in suits. Her former high school classmates are exactly dumb enough to believe that "the city" has sent someone to investigate all the mysterious deaths. Fuck, if Roman's the sheriff, the actual local law enforcement will believe it without any hypnosis necessary.

"Is it... Jennifer?" her mom asks. After Anita demonstrated her demonic powers, her mom came around to her side of the story.

Anita shrugs. "Dunno. I'm gonna pay a visit to the waterfall before the reunion tonight."

Outsiders think that the Midwest is a perpetual frozen hellscape like it admittedly is during the winter, but summers here are scorching. Anita is so sweaty that by the time she gets to the waterfall that gives Devil's Kettle its name, she's half tempted to jump in. Her demonic powers might keep her alive. Maybe the journey would turn her full demon, or back into a human again.

"Are you here?" Anita asks the landscape.

Nothing answers her, or at least nothing she can hear over the rush of water. Three bodies in two months wouldn't be a pattern to anyone else. Going by the newspaper, the law is definitely trying to play it off like it's a rogue grizzly bear or something. No one wants a repeat of ten years ago.

She wonders, sometimes, what she could have done differently. If she had made different choices, if she and Jennifer had run away to kill Low Shoulder together, if she hadn't been so determined to do what she thought was right. Now that she's tasted blood, she regrets a lot of things.

Anita turns a faded friendship bracelet over in her hand, pulled out of one of the innumerable shoeboxes in her bedroom closet. She and Jennifer wove them for each other one summer camp, but ditched them for the cuter best friend necklaces later on.

"Hope it's you, Jen," she says to no one, and tosses the bracelet into the Devil's Kettle.

*

Anita doesn't need glasses now that she's part demon. She pins up her hair, wings her eyeliner, and applies a blood red lipstick. She already looks completely unlike Needy, and that's standing around in her bra and panties.

The suit is black, so she can pretend to be working for the FBI. It's tailored, because try finding something that will fit right off the rack. The blazer is single-breasted, and the button is low enough to reveal that Anita is wearing, essentially, nothing but a fancy black bra underneath. Stomach covered, tits out. Just another treat for Jennifer to enjoy if she's murdering people in the woods.

The shoes have to be shoes she can run in, unforch. Anita opts for some fuck-off earrings to make up for it. At the last minute, she puts on the friendship bracelet that matches the one she threw into Devil's Kettle.

Bluffing her way into her high school reunion, hosted in the actual literal high school gym because there's nowhere to _go_ in Devil's Kettle, is easy. All the people closest to her are dead. Besides, Kelly Washington's eyes go huge when Anita flashes a badge she bought at Party City for, like, a dollar.

"I knew it, I knew there's something weird going on," she whispers. "Do you need a copy of the guest list?"

"Got one already," Anita says, because it sounds mysterious.

The theme of their ten year reunion is "The 80's," which at least isn't racist. Score one for the reunion committee.

Some guys try to hit on Anita as she floats from group to group, asking questions about the disappearances. One of them has a wife on the other side of the gym, so Anita memorizes his face in case Jennifer needs to eat later. No one has heard a goddamn thing. Her high school class looks desperate to believe the grizzly bear story. She can't blame them, really.

Anita finds a corner with a whiskey, neat, and glares at her former high school classmates. God damn it, she's not crazy. She _knows_ the bodies were an invitation for her.

Three things happen at the same time. The lights all go down for the dancing part of the evening. The gym doors seal themselves shut, which Anita only hears because she's far enough away from the speakers. And finally, Anita looks up from her glass to see her ex-best friend watching her from across the dance floor.

*

Jennifer looks good after all this time, not sickly like she got between feedings. She's wearing a bodycon red cocktail dress, because of course her fashion sense is still stuck in the late 2000s. Her hair is down and her earrings are big hoops, also because of course, that's what Jennifer wears. Her lip gloss situation is visible in the light of the disco ball, and she sports a killer smokey eye. Kind of literally: her irises reflect the light of the disco ball, like a cat's.

Or a demon's.

Anita remembers the hypnotic effect of Low Shoulder's music, the way that fire licked up the filthy walls of the bar, but people kept smiling and bobbing their heads. She assumes that Jennifer is here to do something similar. The wet friendship bracelet clinging to Jennifer's wrist gives her a tiny fragment of hope, but she's been burned before.

Anita struts to the center of the dance floor and extends her hand to Jennifer. As if on cue, the DJ starts playing "Time After Time."

Well. If that doesn't make her lesbi-gay intentions clear.

Jennifer's teeth gleam as she smiles, but she does walk over to Anita. She slips her hand into Anita's, then giggles when Anita immediately takes the lead. Jennifer's laugh still does strange things to the rhythm of Anita's heart, things that Anita has only come to understand after Jennifer died. (After she killed her.)

"I hardly recognized you," Jennifer purrs. "You've developed some power of your own."

Cyndi Lauper's timeless ballad doesn't invite athletic dance moves, but Anita spins Jennifer nevertheless. Gotta kill the nostalgia and establish some dominance. Jen was still kind of a dick to her a lot of the time they were friends, even though Anita should have dated her instead of Chip.

"My name is Anita Marks, and I'm here investigating some missing persons," she says. "Know anything about them?"

Jennifer rolls her eyes, but those candy pink lips of hers smirk. "So, like, one of those idiots sold his soul to Satan for a date to his high school reunion. Recent divorce, real desperate, you know?" She drags a finger down Anita's cheek, hard enough that Anita shivers. "I'm thinking about burning this place to the ground. It would really advance my standing in hell."

Anita snorts. "You're going to kill everyone because you want a promotion? Wow, middle-aged much?"

"Mm, someone made sure I never made it to my high school graduation." Jennifer pouts. "Does that make me jailbait?"

"If you've had an un-life in hell for ten years, no," Anita says. Jennifer's skin is hot underneath her hands, unnaturally so. Her hands tighten, one on Jennifer's hand, one on her waist. If she fucks up this pitch, she'll have to kill Jennifer again. Or she'll let Jennifer kill her. Could go either way.

Anita slides her leg between Jennifer's and dips her, sliding her hand up to support her back. The lights from the disco ball cascade around them like snowflakes. Jennifer's lips part and her eyes widen, the picture of doe-eyed desire--

\--and Anita pulls her upright, crushing them together until her mouth brushes Jennifer's ear.

"Let's get out of here," she says. "I can think of more fun things to do."

Anita's gamble is this: the demon for sure wants to burn down the gym, but Jennifer's always been down for a good time.

Jennifer's gaze drops to Anita's mouth for just a second. She licks her lips, drawing out the silence between the question and her eventual answer. In the background, Cyndi Lauper fades into Prince.

"Cool," Jennifer says. "Where did you have in mind?"

Anita whispers it in her ear, and Jennifer smiles.

*

Whenever Anita visits her mother, she makes a point of staying in the shittiest motel in Devil's Kettle. (It's the only motel in Devil's Kettle.) No need to tip off the FBI or whoever that a woman Needy Lesnicki's age has gotten that friendly with her mom. Anita's sure that they run checks periodically, and, well. She's had her share of bad luck.

Although, Anita reflects as she shoves Jennifer into the motel with preternatural strength, her luck has changed since high school.

Jennifer's nose wrinkles as she takes in her surroundings. "Ew. This place is going to give me fleas."

"So it already exceeds your standards." Anita's sure her grin looks a little manic. Her nerves are sparking with the old rush of trading insult for insult with Jennifer. Except this time she won't hit the invisible limit that told her to fold herself up smaller, to make herself lose to Jennifer. This time, she's going to win.

"Bite me," Jennifer says. "Before the fleas do." She tips her head to the side, exposing her neck.

Anita lunges, but Jennifer twists away at the last second. Anita's borrowed demonic instincts shriek at her to grab and bite, but not even they can tell her if she's acting in self-defense or sheer horniness. A little from Column A, a little from Column B.

"You're thinking too much," Jennifer sing-songs, right before she rips open Anita's jacket. Actually rips, too, raking through the lapels like her hands are claws.

Anita's entire upper torso breaks out in goosebumps, since she's only got a bra on underneath and that was extremely hot. "Fuck you, you dick!" she says anyway. "That was my favorite suit!"

There's no immediate snappy comeback. Anita realizes, with a roaring rush of delight, that Jennifer is staring at her boobs. She kind of looks like she wants to eat Anita alive, but that's fine. If that's what it takes to resolve this thing between her and Jennifer, she'll take it.

But Anita's going down fighting.

Anita drags Jennifer into a kiss by the roots of her hair. Their teeth click together, but Anita adjusts the angle by tugging at Jennifer's hair. Jennifer moans at that, low but unmistakable, and Anita's hands clench into fists as she swallows the sound down. She could eat Jennifer herself. She can sense the blood pounding underneath Jennifer's skin. She could tear out her throat.

"I'm hungry," Jennifer murmurs, and bites down hard, just above the left cup of Anita's bra. As she leans back, smirking, a dark purple bruise blossoms there.

Anita's fingers curl around Jennifer's wrist, testing the threads of the friendship bracelet. She smiles. "So am I, Jen."

They fuck, and it's everything Anita secretly imagined whenever she heard the phrase _girls gone wild_ in high school. Jennifer's the one who can't get enough of having her hair pulled, but when she unpins Anita's bun, Anita loses her breath at the sensation of her hair swinging free. She rips Jennifer's tiny dress down the middle, so Jennifer slaps her across the face. Anita kisses Jennifer with blood in her mouth, and that's good, so good that they try to tumble into bed.

Except, well, demons can float above the bed. So can women with demonic powers. Succubi gone wild.

Anita's waited too long for this to do more than writhe against Jennifer in midair, her hands pressed against every inch of skin that she can find. Yet it's Jennifer who comes first, calling Anita's name, biting Anita's lip bloody. Anita follows right after, her mouth tasting of copper and salt and love, so much fucking love. The kind of love that possesses you deeper than any demon.

They crash onto the mattress with a thud. Anita rolls on top of Jennifer in case she tries to leave, but Jennifer's mouth is already on the bruises she left on Anita's skin, proof that she's here, that this is real.

*

The next morning, Anita asks, "Wanna come live with me in Duluth? I've got a secondhand futon and you can eat my asshole customers."

Jennifer throws the shitty motel bed's sole pillow at her. "Um, you can eat my asshole, Needy." 

But then she seizes Anita's wrist, the one bearing the friendship bracelet exactly like her own. Jennifer's teeth catch on the skin just above the bracelet. "Also, yes," Jennifer adds, in the casual voice she uses only when something's important to her but she doesn't want to show it.

"It's Anita now," she says, even though the sight of Jennifer biting her wrist is _doing it_ for her. File that thought away for future investigation, once they're safely away from Jennifer's old hunting grounds.

Sometimes it doesn't come down to exorcising your demons, but learning to live with them.


End file.
